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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/28341021">from you, flowers grow</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/weisenbachfelded/pseuds/weisenbachfelded'>weisenbachfelded</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Newsies (1992), Newsies - All Media Types, Newsies!: the Musical - Fierstein/Menken</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Alternate Universe - Flower Shop, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Florists, M/M</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>In-Progress</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-12-26</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2021-01-27</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-10 19:34:43</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>2</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>5,954</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/28341021</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/weisenbachfelded/pseuds/weisenbachfelded</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Truly, it all begins in the winter of his and Jack’s junior year of college, when Jack is lying on his bed, and Davey is at the desk, writing, and Jack says,</p><p>‘I’m gonna drop out of school and become a florist.’</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>David Jacobs/Jack Kelly</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>16</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>43</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>1. Chapter 1</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><ul class="associations">
      <li>For <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/users/Interpolations/gifts">Interpolations</a>.</li>



    </ul><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>this is a holiday gift fic for benafee! they are so wonderful and so kind and as anyone in this fandom knows the most amazing writer and the kindest commenter ever. thank u for making this year so wonderful!<br/>the concept was just so good that it ran away with me a little so surprise! this is a multi chapter! i can’t wait to finish it off and i hope you enjoy it</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>It’s not that Davey’s jealous. Because he’s not.</p><p>Alright, fine. This - this - <i>whatever</i> that he’s feeling is something akin to jealousy, he’ll admit.</p><p>But he’s not jealous. He’s not.</p><p>It wouldn’t make any sense for him to be jealous.</p><p>Who the hell would he be jealous of anyway? The whole of Twitter?</p><p>His phone buzzes and he pulls it out of his pocket.</p><p>from: Katherine<br/>
<b>quit frowning</b></p><p>Davey looks up at her, where she is staring at him with raised eyebrows. He scowls at her, then remembers the text, and hastily tries to rearrange his features back into what he hopes is a neutral expression. He looks back down at his phone. He hears Katherine exhale lightly, like she is laughing at something.</p><p>His phone buzzes again.</p><p>from: Katherine<br/>
<b>just admit i’m right. ur jealous.</b></p><p>‘I’m not,’ he says, unintentionally aloud.</p><p>‘Not what?’ Jack asks, looking up from his laptop. Davey feels himself turn a bright shade of rosy pink. Great.</p><p>Katherine laughs. Davey glowers.</p><p>‘Nothing,’ Davey mumbles. Jack looks a little puzzled, and looks back down at his laptop, shaking his head in mingled bemusement and awe.</p><p>*</p><p>It all begins, if Davey really thinks about it, in the winter of his and Jack’s junior year of college.</p><p>Well, that’s not quite true. If he’s going to be technical about it, it actually begins in a bar two blocks down from his dorm, in his first week of college.</p><p>The bar is noisy - too noisy, he thinks, as he sits at a table in the back, a half-empty glass of Coke in his hand, and all of his friends’ coats over the backs of the chairs haphazard round the table. His headphones are in his bag - the ones that block out noise and generally make situations like this much more enjoyable - but he is just comfortable enough not to need them quite yet. </p><p>His friends are in the middle of the bar, dancing, all far too drunk already to even remember that he’s over here except for the occasional overenthusiastic wave when they catch his eye. </p><p>It’s not that he’s unhappy - far from it; he’s rather content where he is. He hadn’t particularly wanted to come out tonight anyway. He’s enjoying himself as much as he can, and that, in itself, is a small victory. </p><p>He’s had his eye on this boy all evening - or, at least, in the forty minutes since he got here. Davey had been following Katherine with his eyes, watching her dance, watching her laugh, and twirl Sarah around, just touching her fingertips. So, naturally, he had noticed when this boy made his way through the crowd, tapped Katherine on the shoulder, and smiled. Katherine had screamed in happy surprise, thrown her arms up in the air, and hugged him. He had seemed to know a few people - had hugged Spot like he knew him, had punched Race on the shoulder like they were the oldest of friends, had smiled at Sarah like he had perhaps met her once or twice. </p><p>And then he had stepped slightly into the light, and Davey had nearly dropped his glass. He is kind of short - shorter than Sarah, certainly, but he doesn’t look it. He has the kind of smile, and the kind of aura that radiates the impression he’s a big personality, a brightening personality. He has dark, curly hair, and dark skin, and bright eyes, and dimples in both cheeks when he smiles. He isn’t particularly dressed up - in just ripped jeans and a worn-looking t-shirt, Davey would have thought it rather difficult to come across as attractive, and yet, the boy is doing it, seemingly effortlessly. </p><p>And so there Davey finds himself, his drink going quite unnoticed, his gaze fixed on this short, stocky boy dancing with an oddly transfixing kind of grace, as he watches him tilt his head back and laugh. Davey watches the line of his throat as he does so, his skin glowing beneath the blue-green lights, the light catching off the light sheen of sweat across his skin. Davey feels his stomach twist, and he looks away, back down at his drink, swirling his straw round and round. He stares at the table, at the patterns in the wood. </p><p>‘Mind if I sit here?’</p><p>Davey jumps, and looks up, blinking as his eyes adjust from staring down for so long. </p><p>The boy is standing there, his face illuminated in a new, warm, yellow-ish light now that he has stepped away from the crowd of drunk dancers in the centre of the room. </p><p>‘Go ahead,’ Davey says, and he is rather impressed with the clarity with which he is able to speak. </p><p>‘Thanks,’ the boy says, and Davey watches his chest rising and falling heavily with each breath, as he collapses into the seat that has Spot’s leather jacket slung over the back of it. He slumps into the back of the chair, and laughs, low, heavy, and breathless, and suddenly Davey feels as though it is he who has been dancing until he is gasping for breath, all the wind knocked clean from his lungs. </p><p>Davey intends to reply something akin to <i>no problem</i>, but the words die on his lips. Thankfully, the boy seems not to notice, instead stretching out his arms and glancing back over to where Race and Albert are swinging each other round in circles like kids at a school dance, both flushed red in the face with exhilaration and laughter. </p><p>‘You know Kath and Race, then?’ Davey asks, tentatively. </p><p>The boy turns back around to face him, a crooked smile showing tiny dimples in both cheeks. </p><p>‘I’m Race’s brother,’ he explains, ‘and I knew Kath and Spot in high school.’ When he speaks, his voice has a low, earthy quality to it, and it feels like a gentle contrast to the thudding of the music around them. </p><p>Davey nods. ‘Yeah, I think Race has mentioned you a couple times. I’m Kath and Race’s roommate. Sarah’s my sister,’ Davey says, motioning towards where Kath and Sarah are dancing with just enough space between them to look a little awkward. </p><p>‘Oh, you’re David!’ the boy says. ‘Yeah, they, uh - ’ he clears his throat awkwardly. ‘They’ve mentioned you.’ </p><p>Davey wonders, for a brief moment, what Kath and Race have said about him that has made the boy blush a little, and avoid making eye contact with him. He doesn’t have time to dwell, however, because the boy is speaking again. </p><p>‘I’m Jack. Kelly,’ the boy says, and winces a little. </p><p>‘David. Jacobs,’ Davey replies, with a smile. The boy - Jack - bites his lip and smiles back. If he hadn’t been certain he hadn’t consumed any alcohol that night, Davey might attribute the buzzing in his ears and the giddiness in his chest to being a little tipsy. </p><p>‘Nice to meet you, Davey,’ Jack says, and Davey can’t seem to drag his eyes away from Jack’s, until Jack leans back in his chair, tilting onto the back two legs, to get a nearby server’s attention, and order a drink. </p><p>‘You know,’ Davey says, knowingly, once the drink has been ordered, ‘I heard about a kid one time who fell back and cracked his head open doing that.’ He gestures to where Jack’s chair is still tilted back. </p><p>That makes Jack laugh, a lot, and he comes slamming back down onto all four legs of his chair. </p><p>‘I like you, Davey,’ Jack says, still smiling, and he looks at him through ever-so-slightly narrowed eyes, like he’s trying to figure him out. </p><p>Davey feels himself blush, and hopes that it doesn’t show beneath the dim glow of the coloured lights. Neither breaks eye contact for a moment, and Davey forgets quite how to breathe. He wonders if the world around him has begun to melt away, or if that is just his imagination. </p><p>Then, the server arrives with Jack’s drink - a green-yellow thing with a paper umbrella and lots of ice in it - and the spell is broken, and Davey can hear the music much louder, now, and the people around them feel much more real. </p><p>Davey looks away, and sips from his straw. They are silent for a moment, Davey only daring to look up for the briefest of glimpses at a time. </p><p>‘Hey, I like your shirt,’ Davey says, suddenly, pointing. ‘Cézanne, right?’ </p><p>Jack looks down at his shirt - a blue tee with a print of a painting depicting a vase of flowers on it - then smiles, and takes another sip of his drink. </p><p>‘Yeah, it is,’ Jack says, and then gestures to himself. ‘Art student. And I just like flowers a lot.’ </p><p>‘Languages,’ Davey says, gesturing similarly to himself, ‘and architecture. Architecture, mainly. Double major.’ </p><p>Jack purses his lips and lets out a low whistle that Davey doesn’t hear over the ambient noise of the bar. ‘Impressive,’ he says, ‘I couldn’t get my head ’round math. Or French grammar.’ They both laugh a little at that, and it feels very easy, as if they slot together, curving to fit where the other lulls. </p><p>‘Jack!’ a voice calls from across the bar. Jack turns, and his body language shifts. He tautens, straightening his back out, lifting the corners of his mouth a little further in a way that Davey might call artificial if he knew him a little better. A person - a girl - is weaving her way through the crowds towards them. She is tall - taller, he thinks, than Jack is, just by a little - and willowy, moving in that careful, airy sort of way that a dancer does. Jack has angled his body towards her, and Davey knows what is coming in the split second before it happens. </p><p>She presses her mouth gently to his, two fingers beneath his chin, and he tilts his head to the left to accommodate. When she pulls away, he is smiling softly, one corner of his mouth pulled up a little further than the other.</p><p>Before Davey has the time to notice them approaching, Race and Albert have tumbled into the two seats next to him, both still laughing, and Spot is marching over to them in that way that makes him look as though he is angry, but he really isn’t, he’s just five-foot-one. Katherine sweeps Davey’s Coke out from under him, and takes a long drink without using the straw. The girl who had kissed Jack has an arm across his shoulder, and they are laughing with their heads tilted together in that way that people do when they are sharing an inside joke. </p><p>*</p><p>Davey learns quickly that being roommates with Race and Katherine means that Jack is, by extension, essentially his third roommate. They have this tiny little student apartment ten minutes from campus, in a building with a broken elevator and a shower that refuses to run hot at least four days out of seven each week. </p><p>Davey learns that Jack is in dorms closer to campus, and that he shares a room with Spot, but that Spot is almost always out, and Jack hates cooking, so he somehow ends up at theirs. </p><p>The girl that Jack had been with at the bar is only seen once or twice more before they part ways. Every now and again, there is someone new on Jack’s arm when they all go out together, but they always seem to be more interested in Jack than Jack is in them. Perhaps that’s simply a figment of Davey’s imagination, though, and the closer they become, the more he tries to push any thoughts or opinions concerning Jack’s love life from his mind. </p><p>Halfway through freshman year, Katherine finally screws her head on straight and kisses Sarah beneath the bridge where the high schoolers smoke in the summer evenings. A month later, Davey unlocks the door to the apartment to find Race and Albert tangled together on the sofa, Race’s shirt some halfway across the room, and red marks already blooming up his neck. </p><p>All of a sudden, it feels rather as though Davey suddenly has no roommates at all. It’s fun, for all of three days, until he’s bored of choosing whatever he wants to watch on TV and making lonely pasta dishes for one. </p><p>He thinks that he will always remember the knock on the door, on a cold and rainy Friday night in April, when Jack is waiting in the doorway soaked through and smiling, having just finished his big project for the week. </p><p>Davey gives him a spare shirt and sweatpants - both of which come up several sizes too large - and they curl up on the sofa with bowls of fettuccine Alfredo while Davey recounts the week’s events to a wide-eyed Jack. </p><p>‘Looks like it’s just me and you now, Davey,’ Jack says, with a grin, and shovels more pasta into his mouth. Davey can only duck his head and nod, and eat some more of his own pasta. </p><p>*</p><p>Davey goes to Jack’s room for the first time a week later. Race and Albert are watching a movie - or, so they say - back at the apartment, and Kath and Sarah are on their dozenth date in as many days. </p><p>He’s not quite sure what he expects, but stepping into Jack’s room feels a thousand times more personal and invasive than he had ever anticipated. The walls are covered in papers - cut-outs and scraps from newspapers and magazines, postcards and train tickets and receipts and dozens of little sketches and paintings - all tacked up in a messy kind of collage. There are fairy lights along the shelves, and, most noticeably, plants on every available surface. A series of cactuses on a bookshelf. A plant with long, dangling leaves hanging in a macrame basket from the ceiling. A tall, tree-like plant in the corner. Davey feels as though he could live a whole life within these four walls and never tire of it. </p><p>They sit on Jack’s bed and watch <i>Project Runway</i> reruns and eat instant noodles. Davey glances down at Jack’s hands whenever he gets the chance. They are work-worn, with a smudge of graphite along the side of his left hand, the fingers almost always tapping like they are the remnants of his thoughts, forever buzzing. </p><p>Davey falls asleep on Jack’s shoulder, and when he wakes up the next morning, he is curled around Jack in the little single bed, still wearing his jeans, with a blanket thrown over both of them. </p><p>They go back to Davey’s apartment, where the air is still and quiet in that kind of way that it is when everybody else is still sleeping. Jack leans against the kitchen counter and drinks instant coffee while Davey fries eggs and bacon for six people. </p><p>*</p><p>Jack and Davey slot into each other’s lives with ease - more so, perhaps, than anyone that Davey has ever known. His college years are defined by the time he spends in Jack’s dorm watching him water his plants on the windowsills, or in his own dorm, cooking while Jack looks on. </p><p>The best times, he thinks, are those he spends at Jack’s allotment, tucked away behind an office block, where he has a few spare feet of soil, and he grows flowers in every colour imaginable. Davey marvels at the way he tends to them with such care, grows them into something incredible with such ease. Jack never seems more at peace than when he is there. </p><p>As they hurtle through their first two years, Jack spends increasingly more time there, and increasingly less time on his degree, on the art that once brought him so much joy. </p><p>It makes sense, then, when Jack breaks the news to Davey, and Davey isn’t all that surprised, not really. </p><p>Because truly, it all begins in the winter of his and Jack’s junior year of college, when Jack is lying on his bed, and Davey is at the desk, writing, and Jack says,</p><p>‘I’m gonna drop out of school and become a florist.’</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0002"><h2>2. Chapter 2</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>hello! long time no see! i hope u are all doing well writing is bringing me just the tiniest bit of solace.<br/>there is a post for this fic on my tumblr @weisenbachfelded and there’s also a fic playlist if u fancy checking that out and giving it a reblog!</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Jack, true to his word, drops out of college as fast as he can. </p><p>It is as if Davey’s agreement that it is a good idea is the permission that he needs, and Davey is more than happy to provide his quiet support. </p><p>Jack pays rent on a tiny little shop with an apartment upstairs that has barely enough space for him to live in - though that doesn’t matter so much, as he is hardly ever there. For the first few months, he works two jobs, barely sleeping, spending all of his free time creating his florist from the ground upwards, painting walls and signs, putting up shelves and cupboards and a counter made out of scrap wood. </p><p>Davey visits as often as he can. As happy as he is for Jack, he is slightly bitter that it means he has lost out on having Jack round at his apartment so often, and so he has to make a little more effort if he wants to see him. It’s not that Jack intends to get lost in his work, he knows that, but he always winds up in a never ending spiral, with no time at all left over for anything but work. </p><p>So Davey tries to make up for it, dropping in on his way to and from classes, spending his weekends working on his essays there, while Jack puts up a new shelf, or rearranges something in the back room. He brings Jack coffee in the mornings, and takeout in the evenings, or leftovers from whatever he had cooked for Kath and Race the night before. </p><p>It is like this that they end up the evening before Jack’s grand opening. Davey picks up Thai food from the takeout down the street, and he finds Jack stood on top of a ladder, putting a row of potted plants on a shelf high up. Davey opens the door very carefully, in the knowledge that any sudden movement could very easily lead to Jack toppling off the ladder in shock. </p><p>He very nearly does, when he glances down to see Davey in the doorway, grabbing onto the shelf with one hand and clutching at his chest with the other. </p><p>‘Jesus, Davey!’ Jack gasps. ‘You damn near gave me a heart attack!’</p><p>‘Oh, calm down,’ Davey says, and shuts the door behind him. </p><p>‘Did you bring food?’ Jack asks, clambering down from the ladder, and brushing dirt off his hands. </p><p>‘Did I bring food?’ Davey repeats, scathingly. ‘What do you take me for?’ </p><p>Jack peers into the bag, and grins lopsidedly. ‘You’re the best, Davey.’ </p><p>‘I know, I know,’ Davey says, and bats his hands away. ‘Where d’you want to eat?’ </p><p>‘Uh - ’ Jack looks around him. The shop is pristine as it ever has been, ready for the first customers the next morning. Then, Jack’s expression changes, as though he is thinking through an idea. ‘I know where we can go,’ he says, ‘just let me pack this up.’ </p><p>Davey nods, and leans against the counter while Jack folds up the ladder and takes it to the back room, wipes down a few surfaces one last time, and then locks up the front of the shop. </p><p>He follows him up the staircase at the back of the shop, into his messy apartment - where Jack stops to pick up a sweater, and two forks from the kitchen. Jack hands Davey the forks, pulls on the sweater, and then makes for the fire escape. </p><p>Rather than climb down it, Jack begins to scale the fire escape. Davey follows him, a little slower, because he’s being very careful not to drop the bag of takeout. </p><p>They come out on the flat roof of the building, only three storeys high, looking out at the city spread in all directions. Davey stops for a moment to catch his breath. He’s so tired, these days, what with finals catching up to him, and it is so rare that he finds moments in which he can stop. </p><p>The sky is orange, that glowing kind of colour that sets the clouds on fire. It is the kind of evening that makes people turn, like sunflowers, towards the setting sun, holding hands and holding their breaths, the light so bright and yet so soft, so gentle. The sun herself is only just dipping beneath the horizon; they have twenty minutes or so before dusk. </p><p>When Davey turns to look at Jack again, he is already looking back at him. Jack smiles a half-smile, and tilts his head, motioning for Davey to come and sit with him. </p><p>They lean back against the wall, and eat their takeout straight out of the box. Davey listens to Jack talk about his day, about the last-minute deliveries he’s been getting, about the frantic phone calls he’s been making chasing up a batch of yellow roses, about the ribbon organiser he’s bought to go beneath the desk. Jack listens to Davey talk about his final design project, about the mortifying mistake he made in an oral exam in front of his entire Italian class, about the recipe change to the pizza they serve in the college canteen that means it sucks now. </p><p>When Jack finishes his food, he leans back and stretches, and looks out at the sky. Davey’s forkful of noodles misses his mouth by a half-inch or so. He allows himself to indulge in a brief half-moment of staring, of the sight of Jack bathing in the sunset, trying to secure a solid memory of how the orange light sets his skin aglow, how it makes his dark eyes look even darker, deeper, more thoughtful. He gets the feeling, though, that this memory will not be quite so solid as he wants it to be. Sometime soon, when he is paying attention to far less important things, like finals or dissertations, the image of Jack like this will slip through his fingers like silk, just as the sun slips down beneath the horizon without a whisper of a warning.  </p><p>‘Are you nervous about tomorrow?’ Davey asks, when the silence has stretched on for long enough. </p><p>‘Y’know,’ Jack says, looking out ahead of him, ‘I’m not. I keep thinking the nerves are gonna kick in -‘ he raises a hand, perhaps to gesture ‘- and they just… don’t.’ He lets his hand drop back down to his lap. He turns suddenly, and looks at Davey. ‘Do you think I should be?’ </p><p>‘No, no,’ Davey says, hastily, ‘god, no. I was just - just checking.’ </p><p>That makes Jack smile, as he looks away from Davey again. ‘Just checking,’ he repeats, and laughs, quietly, under his breath. </p><p>*</p><p>They are nearly thirty of them, squeezed into the little shop, friends and friends of friends and siblings and cousins all celebrating, Jack in the middle, dazed and disbelieving. </p><p>Specs brings a bottle of champagne, and so does Race - which Jack doesn’t even pretend to be a stern big brother about, because they’ve all made the most of Race’s fake ID more times than they can count, and Race deserves to get a couple more goes out of it before he turns twenty-one next month. </p><p>Davey sips from his champagne glass and hangs back in a corner, and watches the scene, and pretends like he isn’t just watching Jack. </p><p>Jack is happier than Davey has seen him in a very long time, happier, perhaps, than he has ever seen him. Happy looks good on him. </p><p>Albert is sitting on the counter, and Race is stood in between their legs, leaning back against them. Albert runs their fingers absently through his hair as they talk to Spot. Kath and Sarah are holding hands and talking to different people. It reminds Davey a little of the way that couples tie their champagne flutes together with ribbon at their weddings. Specs has their arm around Romeo, and Romeo is leaning gently into their side. Every so often, Specs squeezes their arm, and runs their fingers over the material of Romeo’s shirt, and Romeo sighs, contentedly. Elmer is playing tag with two of the kids, hiding behind plants and people, and screaming whenever one of them manages to tag him. Smalls has managed to climb a shelf, and Crutchie is trying to convince her that if she jumps, they’ll be able to catch her. Davey is ready to intervene at any moment. </p><p>The shop door opens, and a bell tinkles, and Davey watches Jack freeze as his first <i>actual customers</i> walk in. They are both middle-aged women, one holding a paper bag of groceries, and laughing at something the other one has just said. </p><p>They all frantically try to act natural so as they won’t be scared off by a ragtag bunch of weirdos all staring at them in excitement, but it is difficult for them not to go silent and watch as Jack serves them. </p><p>Davey feels a quiet kind of pride as he watches Jack speak to them, pick out flowers for two bouquets, tie them up in ribbon with shaky hands, exchange coins and wish them well. </p><p>To their credit, they do a fairly impressive job of ignoring Smalls all but swinging from the ceiling, and the way everyone’s eyes follow them to the door like they’re at a tennis match. The moment the door swings shut, the shop explodes in cheers. Race gets an arm around Jack’s shoulders and ruffles his hair. Jack ducks his head and blushes, grinning like crazy as they all clamour to get a hand on him, to hug him, to shove him, to squeeze his shoulder - or, in Kath’s case, to pinch his cheeks like a grandmother. </p><p>Jack looks up at Davey, so quickly that Davey barely has time to rearrange his features into something that makes it look like he hasn’t been staring with a soft smile on his face and nothing short of adoration in his eyes. Jack’s smile spreads even wider, and Davey feels a tug in the middle of his chest, just to the side of where his heart is, in a part of him protected so carefully by his ribs that he hadn’t even been aware that it existed. </p><p>*</p><p>Sarah has always teased that Davey’s going to become a career academic, and it ends up being only this teasing that causes any hesitation in Davey’s decision to get his masters in languages while he works part-time at a local architecture firm. </p><p>The work is mostly administrative, but it’s a step in the right direction, as he reminds himself daily. </p><p>If he’s truly being honest, one of the best parts is the proximity of the office to Jack’s shop. It’s just close enough that he can justify a trip there most mornings, usually after a brief stop at Spot’s to pick up coffee for them both. </p><p>Davey moves out of student accommodation and into his own apartment. His work at the firm pays just enough for a one-bed place, where the kitchen, dining room, and sitting room are one and the same. The apartment subdued, and quiet, for it is barely big enough to fit his own life, let alone ten of his friends for a movie night. They usually end up spending those at one of the bigger apartments - Sarah and Kath’s by the river, or Spot and Elmer’s above the coffee shop. </p><p>It is very lonely, sometimes. It’s a little too far from everyone else’s places to be convenient - such is the price he has to pay if he wants to pay rent and still have three meals a day. As such, it rarely sees a face except his. He hasn’t brought someone back in months, he barely has the time, or the energy, between his degree, and work, and friends. </p><p>He shouldn’t complain. He loves it, truly, he does, because more than anything, it is <i>his</i>. One of his knitted blankets is on the threadbare sofa, and Jack’s plants are on his windowsill. There are photographs of him and his friends tacked up on the walls, unframed, and one of them all at Spot and Elmer’s wedding in the centre, pride of place. The left side of his bed is up against the wall, just how he likes it, his favourite ingredients are in the cupboards, and his old chipped mug leaves rings of coffee on the kitchen table. He likes it this way. </p><p>He likes his routine, likes waking up to his alarm and to sunlight filtering in through the curtains. He likes having time in the mornings before class, making himself breakfast, scrolling through his phone cross-legged on a chair at the kitchen table while he eats his toast. He likes watering the plants with water in a little milk jug, and he likes the silence while he showers and gets dressed. He likes getting the subway on his own, and getting out a stop away from work, so that he can go to Spot’s. </p><p>He likes waiting in line, and waving at Spot behind the counter, and he likes not having to place his order before Spot slams two cups down on the countertop with an eight AM scowl on his face but a gleam in his eye. He likes the walk to Jack’s shop, and he likes the way that Jack smiles when he sees him walk through the door. He likes the way that Jack is often already looking up, as though he is expecting him, or waiting for him. </p><p>He likes it when he has a spare twenty minutes (not that he intentionally schedules that into his morning routine) and he leans against the counter and talks to Jack. He likes it when Jack laughs, and he can see his dimples. </p><p>His favourite mornings are the ones when Jack jumps out of his seat and runs to the back room, to fetch him a new bouquet or even sometimes just a single flower, for him to put in the vase on his desk at work. It gets him more than a few raised eyebrows when he walks in in the mornings with flowers in his arms, but nobody ever says a word. </p><p>Jack refuses any form of payment, so, of course, it only becomes a matter of Davey figuring out more and more inventive ways of hiding five- and ten-dollar bills around the shop for Jack to find. He’s sure that Jack’s going to figure out what’s going on - or that he already knows - but he decides that he doesn’t care. </p><p>It is a Thursday morning, and Davey is in the process of leaving a five-dollar bill beneath Jack’s coffee mug when he finds it, the little blue notebook that Jack uses for some of his accounts. Davey’s no accountant, but he knows his math is better than most, and he takes a quick look around to check that Jack’s still in the back room before he opens it and flips to the most recent page. </p><p>The page is dated the day before, and it is filled with scribbles, with repetitions of the same sums over and over again, each with the same outcome. Davey feels his stomach sink. He doesn’t know much, but he knows this isn’t good. Jack would never say as much, would never reach out for help, especially not financially, and honestly, it’s a marvel that he’s hidden it so well. </p><p>What makes it so devastating is that it’s hardly sudden - there is no huge mistake Jack’s made, no huge catastrophe. Davey flips back a few pages in the notebook, taking in the slow and steady decline of the state of the shop’s accounts. He feels a little sick. </p><p>There is a crashing sound from the back room, followed by a muffled ‘I’m okay!’ from Jack. Davey snaps the book shut and slides it back where it was. He leaves ten dollars rather than five beneath the mug. </p><p>*</p><p>Davey doesn’t stop thinking about the numbers written in Jack’s messy scrawl, a little smudged by the side of his hand as he wrote. He lies in bed at night and plays through dialogue options in his head like he’s a draft of a movie character. In the very early hours of the morning, with soft moonlight playing across the ceiling, he tentatively brings it up to Jack, asks over a cup of coffee, confronts him after work. He gets up and doesn’t mention anything to Jack. </p><p>*</p><p>Davey <i>hates</i> dinner-date-nights. It’s a newfound tradition started just after everyone moved out from the hectic apartments they all shared with a haphazard mix of each other. Kath and Sarah, Spot and Elmer, and Albert and Race each take it in turn to host the other couples for dinner and wine and unsophisticated conversation, and for some reason, Davey always gets invited as well. Well, he knows the reason. It’s pity. </p><p>The Sunday after he sticks his nose into Jack’s finances, he finds himself two glasses of rosé deep at Spot and Elmer’s apartment. He is sitting at the head of the table, while the couples sit opposite each other. They are all holding hands across the table. Davey feels a bit sick. </p><p>Perhaps it’s the wine talking, or perhaps he’s just tired of holding it in. More likely it’s a mixture of both. Whatever the reason, he blurts it out during what had been, up until that point, a rather comfortable silence. </p><p>‘Jack’s shop is going to go under,’ he says, and when he says it, he is a little surprised at how matter-of-fact it sounds. He regrets that a bit, because it worries him that they might think he doesn’t care. </p><p>‘It’s <i>what</i>?’ Elmer says, incredulously, as all the others stare at him in utter confusion. </p><p>
  Kath sets her wine glass down and shakes her head. ‘We’d know. He’d have said something,’ she says. 
</p><p>
  ‘Would he?’ Race counters. Kath bites her lip.
</p><p>
  ‘Maybe not,’ she decides, after a moment. 
</p><p>
  ‘I saw his accounts book,’ Davey says, ‘and it’s bad. Like, really bad. I’d say he’s got a month before he can’t keep up with rent payments. Maybe two, at a push.’
</p><p>
  ‘Oh, god,’ Kath says, and puts her head in her hands. ‘He can’t lose that shop. It’s everything to him.’
</p><p>
  ‘I know,’ Davey says, quietly, and looks down at his hands. ‘I don’t know what to do. What good’s an architecture degree to him?’ 
</p><p>
  ‘What he needs is support, Davey,’ Sarah says, quickly, ‘and you give him that. You can’t fix everything.’ 
</p><p>
  Albert shakes their head, almost disbelievingly. ‘He gives himself too much to do,’ they say. ‘If he had a spare minute to advertise himself, or something, maybe he’d be - y’know.’ 
</p><p>
  Spot nods. ‘Social media is everything, nowadays. Jack barely has time for emails, let alone for a fucking Instagram feed.’
</p><p>
  ‘You think publicity would solve this?’ Kath asks, but she doesn’t sound incredulous. Rather, there is a slow, thoughtful tone to her voice. 
</p><p>
  ‘I mean, yeah,’ Spot says. ‘The problem is customer flow, right? You get publicity, people get to know you online, people remember you. They come in person, or they order online, or whatever.’ 
</p><p>
  ‘Worked for you,’ Sarah says, nodding. ‘I still don’t understand how you can have fifteen thousand followers on an Instagram account for a fucking coffee shop, but here you are.’ Spot raises his glass to her with a smile, in a mock kind of toast. 
</p><p>
  ‘Would an article do it?’ Kath asks. ‘A profile kind of thing?’ 
</p><p>
  Davey looks at her, and blinks. Her words take a moment to settle. He must admit, it is rather magical to see realisation begin to dawn on five faces almost in exact synchronicity. 
</p><p>
  ‘Katherine,’ Davey says, slowly, ‘have I ever told you you’re a genius?’
</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>leave a kudos leave a comment leave a keysmash<br/>also i’m writing another newsies fic and a les mis fic at the same time as this if either of those appeal to u... pls have a look! i am very proud of all of them!<br/>i love u all! u are all the best</p>
        </blockquote><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>i’m @weisenbachfelded on tumblr! come say hi!<br/>happy holidays to you all and especially to benafee. u are wonderful ily</p></blockquote></div></div>
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